Site Mobile Navigation

The French Love to Eat This. Why Don’t Americans?

Rabbit braised in white wine is garnished with chives and served with noodles.Credit
Karsten Moran for The New York Times

It remains a mystery to me why a delicious rabbit dinner, a habit in France, is such a hard sell in the United States, a meal many Americans would shy away from. This is not to say that you can’t buy rabbit here, but you don’t see it on a daily basis in butcher shops or at the supermarket.

When I lived in Paris about 10 years ago, rabbit was always in the weekly dinner rotation. Every butcher shop has rabbits, fetchingly displayed belly-side up, so shoppers can see how fresh, pink and pristine they are. (Rabbits are sold in the poultry section, but chickens there are actually more expensive.)

Photo

You can ask your butcher to cut up the rabbit, but doing it yourself is no more daunting than cutting up a chicken, once you get the hang of it.Credit
Karsten Moran for The New York Times

My favorite place to buy a rabbit in France is at the outdoor markets, where the poultry stand butchers are invariably women, with sure hands and sharp knives at the ready. Nothing gets wrapped in paper without at least a little trimming.

Quickly cutting up a rabbit is not a problem. “Avec ça?” she will ask afterward, giving you the opportunity to buy something else, some eggs, perhaps. Even if your reply is “Non, merci, Madame,” she’ll tuck a few chicken livers into a plastic bag. (A little gift with a purchase makes for loyal customers.)

You may not have that option in American butcher shops, and may be offered only whole rabbits. But these days a new generation of artisanal butchers is on the rise, so it never hurts to ask. (There are online purveyors that sell various parts, however.)

For that matter, you can also roast a rabbit whole, like a chicken, rubbed first with butter or olive oil. Keep in mind that a rabbit is leaner, so it requires some liquid in the roasting pan, frequent basting and the pan must be loosely covered.

Photo

The mustard sauce is an old-fashioned French favorite.Credit
Karsten Moran for The New York Times

But breaking down your own rabbit is no more daunting than cutting up a chicken, once you get the hang of it. The anatomy is straightforward: front quarter, saddle and hind end. That gives you two front legs, two to four pieces of saddle and two hind legs.

Now, if you marinate those pieces in buttermilk, then dip them in well-seasoned flour for shallow frying in a cast-iron skillet, you’ll have crisp, juicy, chicken-fried rabbit to die for.

If you braise the pieces with white wine, herbs, Dijon mustard and crème fraîche, you’ll have a marvelous and rich French classic to serve with noodles, potatoes or rice. That’s a little more fiddly, but absolutely worth the effort.